Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
For you it’s the right thing to do / for your average pensioner that isn’t the case
I’m actually inclined to agree with Bart on this on the basis he’s swapping one good tax with another good tax - they’re both unavoidable levies on something that is reasonably unelastic.
Fuel duty is highly progressive , given the consumption pattern, so you’d have to be careful about where the tax burden lands. About 65% would need to land on the top two income quintiles for a like-for-like, so adjust your income tax rates and thresholds accordingly.
The other difficulty is that fuel duty also acts as a Pigou tax on negative externalities - carbon emissions, noise, energy security. Perhaps balancing it so that petrol always costs 3x per mile than off-peak electricity would work?
Being able to charge an EV on a driveway tends towards people with higher incomes.
All the other charging options are vastly more expensive.
I know. The fix should be local government run pavement chargers that charge at a slightly higher rate than at home. They’d make their money back at the long term.
But instead of making that investment we pissed away £50 billion on universal fuel bill support in 2022. Deeply regressive transfer to people living in massive houses.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Trump FT interview: .. “my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘why are you doing that?’” He also said: “Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options.”..
What chance the Easter rush provoking UK-wide petrol shortages? I'm thinking about evens...
Do you have shares in BP?
I have a small holding.
Do you keep chickens?
Not in my Freetrade account.
I do have three small tubs in the garden that are my ‘wild ponds’. I got pond water, detritus and plants from three places. Dumped one in each and see what grows.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
Also the introduction of computerization means that things you used to be able to do in hours can now take months - I suspect the changes you want aren’t 2 second fixes (and given how dire most payroll software providers are you need that time to avoid them screwing up)
It's hardly like they are in line to win the next election anyway.
If they accepted at this point that they are getting smashed at the next election, and ceased to care about being popular, they could go nuts and actually do all the structural reforms the country needs.
Ironically, this might be strangely popular, as lots of people (I'm one) who have written them off as a combination of fundamentally unserious and only willing to act in the interests of their client voters (public sector employees and "benefits street") might be willing to give them another look.
As always, the problem will be that their backbench idiots won't wear any meaningful reform, as they only got into politics to spend other people's money on their favored groups.
Absolutely agreed. And its not as if pensioners are lining up to vote Labour anyway.
Headline changes to tax rates have been implemented in the computerised era in a matter of days before. A 1 week turnaround would be unprecedentedly rapid, but it is possible, and under Parliamentary Sovereignty any change Parliament passes is the law anyway.
The simplest way to do it is to change the headline rates without affecting anything else. Set a nil rate for NICs (already not only possible but exists in all computer systems) and set the ICT rates to the merged rates.
And set it from 6/4/2026 (ie next Monday).
Job done.
Hang on do you work with payroll software providers - because sadly that's one of the things I have to do...
Believe me there is no way they could implement that sort of change in 5 days (let alone the 2 it actually is given that this weekend has 2 bank holidays in it).
Now you are 100% correct that they should be able to do it but reality nowadays is very, very different...
Currently, no, but previously, yes.
And don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough for now.
In 2008 there were changes from 6 April 2008 that were announced on 13 May 2008 and backdated.
Here it would not be backdating. Give payroll providers leeway to fix it within the tax year, as happened in 2008, but its entirely viable to do.
You just don't like the solution, and never have. That's different to it being inviable.
What chance the Easter rush provoking UK-wide petrol shortages? I'm thinking about evens...
Do you have shares in BP?
I have a small holding.
Do you keep chickens?
Not in my Freetrade account.
I do have three small tubs in the garden that are my ‘wild ponds’. I got pond water, detritus and plants from three places. Dumped one in each and see what grows.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
Also the introduction of computerization means that things you used to be able to do in hours can now take months - I suspect the changes you want aren’t 2 second fixes (and given how dire most payroll software providers are you need that time to avoid them screwing up)
It's hardly like they are in line to win the next election anyway.
If they accepted at this point that they are getting smashed at the next election, and ceased to care about being popular, they could go nuts and actually do all the structural reforms the country needs.
Ironically, this might be strangely popular, as lots of people (I'm one) who have written them off as a combination of fundamentally unserious and only willing to act in the interests of their client voters (public sector employees and "benefits street") might be willing to give them another look.
As always, the problem will be that their backbench idiots won't wear any meaningful reform, as they only got into politics to spend other people's money on their favored groups.
Absolutely agreed. And its not as if pensioners are lining up to vote Labour anyway.
Headline changes to tax rates have been implemented in the computerised era in a matter of days before. A 1 week turnaround would be unprecedentedly rapid, but it is possible, and under Parliamentary Sovereignty any change Parliament passes is the law anyway.
The simplest way to do it is to change the headline rates without affecting anything else. Set a nil rate for NICs (already not only possible but exists in all computer systems) and set the ICT rates to the merged rates.
And set it from 6/4/2026 (ie next Monday).
Job done.
Hang on do you work with payroll software providers - because sadly that's one of the things I have to do...
Believe me there is no way they could implement that sort of change in 5 days (let alone the 2 it actually is given that this weekend has 2 bank holidays in it).
Now you are 100% correct that they should be able to do it but reality nowadays is very, very different...
Currently, no, but previously, yes.
And don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough for now.
In 2008 there were changes from 6 April 2008 that were announced on 13 May 2008 and backdated.
Here it would not be backdating. Give payroll providers leeway to fix it within the tax year, as happened in 2008, but its entirely viable to do.
You just don't like the solution, and never have. That's different to it being inviable.
Do it over the course of a parliament - take a bit of NIC and add it to IT, each year. Targeting zero employee NI in the last step. This gives the payroll/tax companies a few years to prepare for zero rate for NIC - which might break a few things.
The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately "Open for Business," we will conclude our lovely "stay" in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet "touched." This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime's 47 year "Reign of Terror." Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP
I will say this for the ayatollahs. At least Iran isn't led by someone who is obviously insane.
I met up with my friends: all “centrist dads”, whether in Law, Consulting, Advertising or IT.
They are now all ferociously anti-Israel, if not actively anti-Zionist.
We seem to have been on the same journey
And yet the deliberate planned horror of the brutal rapes of women on October 7 and the female hostages kept thereafter has not led to any journey by you - or apparently @Gardenwalker's friends - reflecting on why male violence against women is wrong and why those groups, states, cultures etc which promote it should be equally viewed with horror and distaste. Which is doubtless why we read you this morning proudly saying that you feel like punching an opportunistic female politician but never an opportunistic male politician, of which there are many.
It is not necessary to balance every criticism of Israel with a criticism of Islam, or Hamas or whatever.
When a man talks about inflicting violence against a woman but then claims to have been on a journey because of his distaste about why Israel has done then it is worth noting how selective his outrage is and how he has never, as far as I can see, condemned male violence against women.
I am not often here anymore but it strikes me that it the preponderance of criticism here has been against Israel rather than Iran or Hamas and there has been very little talk or reflection on or criticism of the those attacking Jews in this country which, unlike the Middle East, is something we can actually do something about.
I believe you care being unusually disingenuous. After October 7th I was in discussion on here with @Richard_Tyndall that Hamas should be punished first not by wiping out the footsoldier holed up in tunnels under Gazan hospitals but take out the Grandees in Doha. It was a long while before Netanyahu took out the Doha contingent.
The criticism certainly from me has been for the Israeli regime and certainly the hardliners, of which I consider Netanyahu to be crucial. Netanyahu like Trump has used conflict as a smokescreen for domestic existential troubles. At no point have I brushed off the wickedness of October 7th.
I would condemn criminals setting fire to ambulances in North London, shooting up synagogues in Manchester with equal measure to criminals setting fire to Holiday Inn Express hotels in Essex. Anyone going about their lawful business unhindered and in safety,whatever their creed or colour. The fact that they can't either as Jews or Muslims suggests a dereliction of duty by the authorities, and not just Central Government.
"The fact that they can't either as Jews or Muslims suggests a dereliction of duty by the authorities"
hmmm. The problem there is that, even in a total surveillance state*, you can't stop people behaving badly. All you can do is catch people after the act and try and deter the next lot.
*Drug trafficking and various other organised crimes ave flourished in the most totalitarian states the world has produced so far. As did attacks on ethnic groups, even though under the (nominal) protection of the state.
I was thinking more about curtailment of a culture that behind the cloak of free speech allows Anti-Semitic and Islamaphobic narratives. The trouble is the infection is deep inside Fleet Street and the Houses of Parliament.
OfCom stripping GBNews of its licence would be a start from one side of the coin.
If you look at the various police reports and trials, the problem is about 95% self radicalised dipshits and losers, with a smattering of state sponsorship of dipshits and losers.
While we can try and reduce the volume on the media messages that feed this, sadly, hate filled dipshits and losers are a renewable resource.
While it would be nice to eliminate it, I can't see how. We could do lots of performative measures, that would impact the minority communities concerned excessively. And would be somewhere between useless and counterproductive.
But don't you think the sad and uniformed would no be triggered by the lies of GBNews or even hard left X accounts.
I was listening to a woman years ago whose aged father was always angry after learning how hard done by he was from Fox News. She said when he moved in with them her husband disabled Fox so he had to get his 24 hour news from less unreliable sources and he was much happier.
I’ve often wondered why anyone would choose to consume news from a place that simply provokes and enrages them.
It’s no way to live a life.
In my view this rules out, for example, the Mail, Telegraph AND the Guardian.
I know someone who gets wound up by the Today Programme every morning - sometimes spoiling their whole day. And won't stop.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
That might work if the basic state pension was linked to the minimum wage.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
For you it’s the right thing to do / for your average pensioner that isn’t the case
I’m actually inclined to agree with Bart on this on the basis he’s swapping one good tax with another good tax - they’re both unavoidable levies on something that is reasonably unelastic.
Fuel duty is highly progressive , given the consumption pattern, so you’d have to be careful about where the tax burden lands. About 65% would need to land on the top two income quintiles for a like-for-like, so adjust your income tax rates and thresholds accordingly.
The other difficulty is that fuel duty also acts as a Pigou tax on negative externalities - carbon emissions, noise, energy security. Perhaps balancing it so that petrol always costs 3x per mile than off-peak electricity would work?
Being able to charge an EV on a driveway tends towards people with higher incomes.
All the other charging options are vastly more expensive.
I know. The fix should be local government run pavement chargers that charge at a slightly higher rate than at home. They’d make their money back at the long term.
But instead of making that investment we pissed away £50 billion on universal fuel bill support in 2022. Deeply regressive transfer to people living in massive houses.
It was a flat rate, so proportionally benefited people in smaller properties
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
Where exactly did you get that figure from because I have a suspicion it hides a very nasty surprise (for you) and the vast majority of that 350bn is made up of people's individual tax allowance...
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
What chance the Easter rush provoking UK-wide petrol shortages? I'm thinking about evens...
Our son, his wife and 3 children leave on wednesday in their diesel campervan to do the Scotland 500 !!!!
He intends meeting family in Inverness and Wick on the way
The NC500 in a diesel campervan over Easter, during a fuel wobble, with three children onboard?
That is either a family holiday or a very ambitious resilience exercise.
More seriously, hope they have a great trip and manage it sensibly. The route is stunning, but it’s also notorious now for people treating it like a motoring theme park rather than somewhere people actually live. If they’re meeting family in Inverness and Wick they’re already doing it more like normal human beings than half the convoy.
Main thing is probably to fill up when they can, book properly, use campsites rather than random lay-bys, and remember that single track roads are not a duel.
The NC500 was a seriously bad idea. I don't know how it can be rowed back on now, sadly.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
Where exactly did you get that figure from because I have a suspicion it hides a very nasty surprise (for you) and the vast majority of that 350bn is made up of people's individual tax allowance...
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
I’ve not seen your post or the replies. I was out on my bike.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
For you it’s the right thing to do / for your average pensioner that isn’t the case
I’m actually inclined to agree with Bart on this on the basis he’s swapping one good tax with another good tax - they’re both unavoidable levies on something that is reasonably unelastic.
Fuel duty is highly progressive , given the consumption pattern, so you’d have to be careful about where the tax burden lands. About 65% would need to land on the top two income quintiles for a like-for-like, so adjust your income tax rates and thresholds accordingly.
The other difficulty is that fuel duty also acts as a Pigou tax on negative externalities - carbon emissions, noise, energy security. Perhaps balancing it so that petrol always costs 3x per mile than off-peak electricity would work?
Being able to charge an EV on a driveway tends towards people with higher incomes.
All the other charging options are vastly more expensive.
I know. The fix should be local government run pavement chargers that charge at a slightly higher rate than at home. They’d make their money back at the long term.
But instead of making that investment we pissed away £50 billion on universal fuel bill support in 2022. Deeply regressive transfer to people living in massive houses.
It was a flat rate, so proportionally benefited people in smaller properties
The price guarantee wasn’t, and that accounted for about £40 billion.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
Where exactly did you get that figure from because I have a suspicion it hides a very nasty surprise (for you) and the vast majority of that 350bn is made up of people's individual tax allowance...
Over £1.3 trillion, almost £1.4 trillion, in income subject to income tax of which less than £1 trillion comes from employment.
So you don’t count self employment as employment then?
The rest of the money is pensioners, interest, rent and dividends
Interest and dividends are taxed via a different tax regime to income tax so what you are left with is landlords and pensioners
Again it doesn’t raise the money you think it does and given how quickly you are happy to give pensioners a overly complex tax break compared to keeping the money separate it doesn’t actually raise any real money at all,
I met up with my friends: all “centrist dads”, whether in Law, Consulting, Advertising or IT.
They are now all ferociously anti-Israel, if not actively anti-Zionist.
We seem to have been on the same journey
And yet the deliberate planned horror of the brutal rapes of women on October 7 and the female hostages kept thereafter has not led to any journey by you - or apparently @Gardenwalker's friends - reflecting on why male violence against women is wrong and why those groups, states, cultures etc which promote it should be equally viewed with horror and distaste. Which is doubtless why we read you this morning proudly saying that you feel like punching an opportunistic female politician but never an opportunistic male politician, of which there are many.
It is not necessary to balance every criticism of Israel with a criticism of Islam, or Hamas or whatever.
When a man talks about inflicting violence against a woman but then claims to have been on a journey because of his distaste about why Israel has done then it is worth noting how selective his outrage is and how he has never, as far as I can see, condemned male violence against women.
I am not often here anymore but it strikes me that it the preponderance of criticism here has been against Israel rather than Iran or Hamas and there has been very little talk or reflection on or criticism of the those attacking Jews in this country which, unlike the Middle East, is something we can actually do something about.
None of my friends talked about inflicting violence on women. And I’m not sure Roger did, did he?
You are often so keen to ingratiate yourself that you make yourself appear ridiculous. Do you think anyone with half a brain would believe I was going to punch someone or even more to the point announce it if I was?
It was clearly a joke. A figure of speech. I could have said 'Write a stiff letter' but I thought it lacked impact! Though if I'd thought I was being read by such a dullard as yourself I would have been more circumspect,
I made a similar comment about James O’Brien about two years ago, and my troll wet their bed over it
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
At the moment a two state solution is supported by the Palestinian authority but not by Israel.
I'd welcome that although I doubt it would solve everything and there'd be plenty of arguing/drama about where the borders get drawn.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
Where exactly did you get that figure from because I have a suspicion it hides a very nasty surprise (for you) and the vast majority of that 350bn is made up of people's individual tax allowance...
Over £1.3 trillion, almost £1.4 trillion, in income subject to income tax of which less than £1 trillion comes from employment.
So you don’t count self employment as employment then?
The rest of the money is pensioners, interest, rent and dividends
Interest and dividends are taxed via a different tax regime to income tax so what you are left with is landlords and pensioners
Again it doesn’t raise the money you think it does and given how quickly you are happy to give pensioners a overly complex tax break compared to keeping the money separate it doesn’t actually raise any real money at all,
The government data did not count it as employment, not me.
And the question was not about employment, but about income not subject to NICs . . . and what proportion of self employed income is actually subject to NICs at the exact same rate as employed income?
Everyone earning the same income should be liable to the same taxes, no matter how it is earned.
I would not exempt pensioners from tax equalisation, that proposal came from Malmesbury. I said I would not do that, if a tax rate is good enough for basic rate employees then why not basic rate pensioners?
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
Where exactly did you get that figure from because I have a suspicion it hides a very nasty surprise (for you) and the vast majority of that 350bn is made up of people's individual tax allowance...
Over £1.3 trillion, almost £1.4 trillion, in income subject to income tax of which less than £1 trillion comes from employment.
So you don’t count self employment as employment then?
The rest of the money is pensioners, interest, rent and dividends
Interest and dividends are taxed via a different tax regime to income tax so what you are left with is landlords and pensioners
Again it doesn’t raise the money you think it does and given how quickly you are happy to give pensioners a overly complex tax break compared to keeping the money separate it doesn’t actually raise any real money at all,
The government data did not count it as employment, not me.
And the question was not about employment, but about income not subject to NICs . . . and what proportion of self employed income is actually subject to NICs at the exact same rate as employed income?
Everyone earning the same income should be liable to the same taxes, no matter how it is earned.
Dividends are taxed in a particular way because the money has already been taxed once via corporation tax. Self employed pay different levels of National Insurance for long standing reasons.
You don't seem to grasp that the only people who you will be taxing are pensioners and you've already said any pensioner earning less than £50,000 is going to be exempt so I can't imagine many pensioners will be paying it....
Basically you've got a scheme that looks great but when you've finished the carve outs you've left no money being raised..
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
At the moment a two state solution is supported by the Palestinian authority but not by Israel.
I'd welcome that although I doubt it would solve everything and there'd be plenty of arguing/drama about where the borders get drawn.
It would feel like progress at least.
The last time there were serious negotiations, it was accepted by Israel and rejected by the Palestinian Authority.
Trump needs to be sectioned given his latest delusional tirade .
He needed to be sectioned after claiming he won the 2020 election. Everything since then has just been confirmation.
I'm not sure about sectioning, but Trump should definitely have been tried and likely imprisoned for insurrection. This was a big failure by the American state.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
Where exactly did you get that figure from because I have a suspicion it hides a very nasty surprise (for you) and the vast majority of that 350bn is made up of people's individual tax allowance...
Over £1.3 trillion, almost £1.4 trillion, in income subject to income tax of which less than £1 trillion comes from employment.
So you don’t count self employment as employment then?
The rest of the money is pensioners, interest, rent and dividends
Interest and dividends are taxed via a different tax regime to income tax so what you are left with is landlords and pensioners
Again it doesn’t raise the money you think it does and given how quickly you are happy to give pensioners a overly complex tax break compared to keeping the money separate it doesn’t actually raise any real money at all,
The government data did not count it as employment, not me.
And the question was not about employment, but about income not subject to NICs . . . and what proportion of self employed income is actually subject to NICs at the exact same rate as employed income?
Everyone earning the same income should be liable to the same taxes, no matter how it is earned.
Dividends are taxed in a particular way because the money has already been taxed once via corporation tax. Self employed pay different levels of National Insurance for long standing reasons.
You don't seem to grasp that the only people who you will be taxing are pensioners and you've already said any pensioner earning less than £50,000 is going to be exempt so I can't imagine many pensioners will be paying it....
Basically you've got a scheme that looks great but when you've finished the carve outs you've left no money being raised..
No, I would tax all the same. Including dividends and the self-employed.
I would simplify the tax system so people can not shelter their income in corporations and claim it as dividends at a lower rate of tax or all the other dodges people come up with. All forms of income have been taxed previously.
The long standing reasons for self employment NICs being lower are not very good, since employment related benefits come from the employer and not the Exchequer.
You seem to think I would keep the status quo, when I have repeatedly said I would not.
Everyone on same income should pay the same rate of tax, no exceptions and no carve outs.
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
What chance the Easter rush provoking UK-wide petrol shortages? I'm thinking about evens...
Our son, his wife and 3 children leave on wednesday in their diesel campervan to do the Scotland 500 !!!!
He intends meeting family in Inverness and Wick on the way
The NC500 in a diesel campervan over Easter, during a fuel wobble, with three children onboard?
That is either a family holiday or a very ambitious resilience exercise.
More seriously, hope they have a great trip and manage it sensibly. The route is stunning, but it’s also notorious now for people treating it like a motoring theme park rather than somewhere people actually live. If they’re meeting family in Inverness and Wick they’re already doing it more like normal human beings than half the convoy.
Main thing is probably to fill up when they can, book properly, use campsites rather than random lay-bys, and remember that single track roads are not a duel.
The NC500 was a seriously bad idea. I don't know how it can be rowed back on now, sadly.
It cant, which is a shame. Needs a significant amount of cash chucked at it to make roads wider, passing places, facilities etc. Feel for the locals who have to put up with the associated issues and lack of facilities. I can see Highland Council are stretched, their road network is ridiculously massive
The principle of the route is fine, but demand for it far outweighs services available. Wardens can only do so much, and there wont be many active in the cooler months
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
At the moment a two state solution is supported by the Palestinian authority but not by Israel.
I'd welcome that although I doubt it would solve everything and there'd be plenty of arguing/drama about where the borders get drawn.
It would feel like progress at least.
The last time there were serious negotiations, it was accepted by Israel and rejected by the Palestinian Authority.
Well there can only be serious negotiations when Israel wants to discuss it. And they don't.
Happy to say it was a huge mistake for Arafat to have rejected it. But that was rather a long time ago and we can do better than what is currently happening.
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
Where exactly did you get that figure from because I have a suspicion it hides a very nasty surprise (for you) and the vast majority of that 350bn is made up of people's individual tax allowance...
Over £1.3 trillion, almost £1.4 trillion, in income subject to income tax of which less than £1 trillion comes from employment.
So you don’t count self employment as employment then?
The rest of the money is pensioners, interest, rent and dividends
Interest and dividends are taxed via a different tax regime to income tax so what you are left with is landlords and pensioners
Again it doesn’t raise the money you think it does and given how quickly you are happy to give pensioners a overly complex tax break compared to keeping the money separate it doesn’t actually raise any real money at all,
The government data did not count it as employment, not me.
And the question was not about employment, but about income not subject to NICs . . . and what proportion of self employed income is actually subject to NICs at the exact same rate as employed income?
Everyone earning the same income should be liable to the same taxes, no matter how it is earned.
Dividends are taxed in a particular way because the money has already been taxed once via corporation tax. Self employed pay different levels of National Insurance for long standing reasons.
You don't seem to grasp that the only people who you will be taxing are pensioners and you've already said any pensioner earning less than £50,000 is going to be exempt so I can't imagine many pensioners will be paying it....
Basically you've got a scheme that looks great but when you've finished the carve outs you've left no money being raised..
No, I would tax all the same. Including dividends and the self-employed.
I would simplify the tax system so people can not shelter their income in corporations and claim it as dividends at a lower rate of tax or all the other dodges people come up with. All forms of income have been taxed previously.
The long standing reasons for self employment NICs being lower are not very good, since employment related benefits come from the employer and not the Exchequer.
You seem to think I would keep the status quo, when I have repeatedly said I would not.
Everyone on same income should pay the same rate of tax, no exceptions.
And I’m pointing out that your changes wouldn’t result in any extra tax revenue because our tax system had been created over the past 100 years to maximizes (within certain limits) total tax take while encouraging particular behaviors (saving money and a certain amount of entrepreneurship)
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
Sweeney74's post upthread is the best reply I can give you. In full: Is possible to talk reasonably about Israel and Palestine?
Only if people stop insisting on one spotless victim and one pure villain.
That seems to be where half these rows go wrong. Israelis have suffered real horrors. Palestinians have suffered real horrors. Hamas are butchers. Large parts of the Israeli state response have been brutal, reckless and, in places, morally indefensible. None of that should be difficult to say, but people keep acting as though admitting one part somehow cancels the other.
The other problem is that people collapse four different arguments into one: who has suffered more, who is morally worse, who has the better historical claim, and what should actually happen now. Those are not the same question. In fact, the only one that really matters politically is the last one.
On the “right to the land” stuff, both sides have narratives that feel complete and righteous from the inside. Fine. But history does not provide a neat answer that makes millions of actual human beings disappear tidily, however tempting that may be to armchair zealots.
The slant I do think is real is that this conflict does seem to inflame and legitimise antisemitism far beyond Israel itself. Criticism of the Israeli government is plainly not the same thing as antisemitism. But it is also obvious that plenty of anti-Israel rhetoric slides very quickly into treating Jews everywhere as collectively guilty, which is just old poison in fresh packaging.
Same rule the other way round too: a synagogue in Manchester is not the IDF, and a mosque in Birmingham is not Hamas.
If people cannot keep that distinction clear, then they are not really talking about peace, justice or even politics. They are just picking a tribe and licensing hatred.
I wish you all the best, and will greatly miss your contributions if this really is your goodbye.
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
I am sure I will not be alone in feeling sorry to see you go. I have always found your contributions to be well written and thought-provoking.
What chance the Easter rush provoking UK-wide petrol shortages? I'm thinking about evens...
Our son, his wife and 3 children leave on wednesday in their diesel campervan to do the Scotland 500 !!!!
He intends meeting family in Inverness and Wick on the way
The NC500 in a diesel campervan over Easter, during a fuel wobble, with three children onboard?
That is either a family holiday or a very ambitious resilience exercise.
More seriously, hope they have a great trip and manage it sensibly. The route is stunning, but it’s also notorious now for people treating it like a motoring theme park rather than somewhere people actually live. If they’re meeting family in Inverness and Wick they’re already doing it more like normal human beings than half the convoy.
Main thing is probably to fill up when they can, book properly, use campsites rather than random lay-bys, and remember that single track roads are not a duel.
The NC500 was a seriously bad idea. I don't know how it can be rowed back on now, sadly.
It cant, which is a shame. Needs a significant amount of cash chucked at it to make roads wider, passing places, facilities etc. Feel for the locals who have to put up with the associated issues and lack of facilities. I can see Highland Council are stretched, their road network is ridiculously massive
The principle of the route is fine, but demand for it far outweighs services available. Wardens can only do so much, and there wont be many active in the cooler months
It’s actually a genuine case for a ‘tourist tax’.
NC500 was a great idea but is now a victim of its own success, because it’s an absolutely wonderful place to be but it’s now overloaded with tourists.
Make it it a toll road for the camper vans, with a couple of strategic barriers and the local van hire companies selling stamps.
But the money needs to go 100% into actually working on the road, making more laybys, improving the single-track sections etc. No contractor boondoggles nor political interference.
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
At the moment a two state solution is supported by the Palestinian authority but not by Israel.
I'd welcome that although I doubt it would solve everything and there'd be plenty of arguing/drama about where the borders get drawn.
It would feel like progress at least.
There is a 2 state solution of a different kind
2 Jewish States.
Israel original boundary next to the States of Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria.
A second designated State in Africa in parts of Ethiopia. An impoverished area that would benefit massively in Jewish business acumen and work ethic.
What chance the Easter rush provoking UK-wide petrol shortages? I'm thinking about evens...
Our son, his wife and 3 children leave on wednesday in their diesel campervan to do the Scotland 500 !!!!
He intends meeting family in Inverness and Wick on the way
The NC500 in a diesel campervan over Easter, during a fuel wobble, with three children onboard?
That is either a family holiday or a very ambitious resilience exercise.
More seriously, hope they have a great trip and manage it sensibly. The route is stunning, but it’s also notorious now for people treating it like a motoring theme park rather than somewhere people actually live. If they’re meeting family in Inverness and Wick they’re already doing it more like normal human beings than half the convoy.
Main thing is probably to fill up when they can, book properly, use campsites rather than random lay-bys, and remember that single track roads are not a duel.
The NC500 was a seriously bad idea. I don't know how it can be rowed back on now, sadly.
It cant, which is a shame. Needs a significant amount of cash chucked at it to make roads wider, passing places, facilities etc. Feel for the locals who have to put up with the associated issues and lack of facilities. I can see Highland Council are stretched, their road network is ridiculously massive
The principle of the route is fine, but demand for it far outweighs services available. Wardens can only do so much, and there wont be many active in the cooler months
Hell is other tourists. Sutherland used to be a very special place. A haunting beauty due to its emptiness. Now it's just traffic jams.
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
Over an incident from ovet 10 years ago based on some reports.
Now I don’t particularly like Scott Mills but that does seem a bit extreme
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
The Sun's headline on its print edition is on Sir Keir's crime surge; I think the Mail was going with Sir Keir's persecution of the strivers.
Thank you for your contributions here, Cyclefree. I hope that your health improves. and soon.
And I hope that the commentary here becomes more civil -- and, more rational, especially on Jews and Israel.
Here are some facts everyone should know:
1. Israel has been at peace with its Arab neighbor, Jordan, for decades. In fact, it is not going too far to say that they are, in effect, allies against the terrorists.
2. Israel has been at peace with its Arab neighbor, Egypt, ever since the 1978 Camp David Accords.
3. Israel would be at peace with its Arab neighbor, Lebanon, were it not for the terrorists there.
4. Hamas has been unable to make peace, even with the PLO.
5. Bill Clinton advised George W. Bush not to try to negotiate peace between the Palestinians and Israel, because the Palestinian leadership did not want peace (or, possibly, feared for their lives if they tried to negotiate with Israel.)
Bush continued the American efforts, in spite of that advice.
6. In 1945, the Nazis could have stopped the Allied attacks by surrendering, and giving up their war criminals; Hamas could have stopped the Israeli attacks by doing the same.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
Where exactly did you get that figure from because I have a suspicion it hides a very nasty surprise (for you) and the vast majority of that 350bn is made up of people's individual tax allowance...
Over £1.3 trillion, almost £1.4 trillion, in income subject to income tax of which less than £1 trillion comes from employment.
So you don’t count self employment as employment then?
The rest of the money is pensioners, interest, rent and dividends
Interest and dividends are taxed via a different tax regime to income tax so what you are left with is landlords and pensioners
Again it doesn’t raise the money you think it does and given how quickly you are happy to give pensioners a overly complex tax break compared to keeping the money separate it doesn’t actually raise any real money at all,
The government data did not count it as employment, not me.
And the question was not about employment, but about income not subject to NICs . . . and what proportion of self employed income is actually subject to NICs at the exact same rate as employed income?
Everyone earning the same income should be liable to the same taxes, no matter how it is earned.
Dividends are taxed in a particular way because the money has already been taxed once via corporation tax. Self employed pay different levels of National Insurance for long standing reasons.
You don't seem to grasp that the only people who you will be taxing are pensioners and you've already said any pensioner earning less than £50,000 is going to be exempt so I can't imagine many pensioners will be paying it....
Basically you've got a scheme that looks great but when you've finished the carve outs you've left no money being raised..
No, I would tax all the same. Including dividends and the self-employed.
I would simplify the tax system so people can not shelter their income in corporations and claim it as dividends at a lower rate of tax or all the other dodges people come up with. All forms of income have been taxed previously.
The long standing reasons for self employment NICs being lower are not very good, since employment related benefits come from the employer and not the Exchequer.
You seem to think I would keep the status quo, when I have repeatedly said I would not.
Everyone on same income should pay the same rate of tax, no exceptions and no carve outs.
You can't tax dividends at the same rate as income, unless you want to abolish Corp tax instead, otherwise the effective taxation rate for dividends is ~22% higher than the taxation of income.
I'm cool with abolishing Corp tax (if you did, on the plus side, there's a big incentive to get business's to reinvest profits rather than just return them to shareholders), but you might have quite a big issue with foreign owned businesses being effectively untaxed.
What chance the Easter rush provoking UK-wide petrol shortages? I'm thinking about evens...
Our son, his wife and 3 children leave on wednesday in their diesel campervan to do the Scotland 500 !!!!
He intends meeting family in Inverness and Wick on the way
The NC500 in a diesel campervan over Easter, during a fuel wobble, with three children onboard?
That is either a family holiday or a very ambitious resilience exercise.
More seriously, hope they have a great trip and manage it sensibly. The route is stunning, but it’s also notorious now for people treating it like a motoring theme park rather than somewhere people actually live. If they’re meeting family in Inverness and Wick they’re already doing it more like normal human beings than half the convoy.
Main thing is probably to fill up when they can, book properly, use campsites rather than random lay-bys, and remember that single track roads are not a duel.
The NC500 was a seriously bad idea. I don't know how it can be rowed back on now, sadly.
It cant, which is a shame. Needs a significant amount of cash chucked at it to make roads wider, passing places, facilities etc. Feel for the locals who have to put up with the associated issues and lack of facilities. I can see Highland Council are stretched, their road network is ridiculously massive
The principle of the route is fine, but demand for it far outweighs services available. Wardens can only do so much, and there wont be many active in the cooler months
Hell is other tourists. Sutherland used to be a very special place. A haunting beauty due to its emptiness. Now it's just traffic jams.
I read that whole comment as being about Sunderland, and was scratching my head.
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
Why should posters hide their opinions to protect your obvious sensitivities. You never have. Your headers were strident and comments equally so, expecting anything different is absurd.
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
Is anyone on Pb still of the view the UK should have joined the war?
We should have sent the RAF to attack Iranian missile sites as Kemi rightly said. If Trump commits ground troops we should join Israel and provide them with support from the air in my view too as that would be the only way to topple the regime.
However as Starmer is in power neither will happen as he is sticking to his line offensive actions in Iran are not authorised under international law
The US does not have a clear war aim. It is unclear how much they are aiming to topple the regime. Should we commit military forces to try to achieve our war aim (regime change) if we can't agree with the US what the war aims are?
If they commit ground troops yes as that shows they want to topple the regime
Committing ground troops does not show they want to topple the regime. Committing ground troops doesn't suddenly mean Trump gains some cognitive clarity. He gives multiple different and contradictory rationales for the war within the same press conference. He has often talked about a deal that leaves the current regime in power, which is of course what he did in Venezuela.
He didn't launch a full scale invasion of Venezuela to topple the regime, just captured Maduro who was succeeded by his VP. Little different to his strikes so far just killing the Supreme Leader and putting his son in his place. Ground troops show he is serious
“Tactics without strategy is just the noise before defeat.”
I can see no strategy here, and we would simply be throwing lives away for no reason, if we got involved.
It may be that we, and other powers, will have no choice but to get involved, but that’s a decision that should only be taken after careful thought.
If the strategy is to remove the regime, then Trump deploying ground troops would support that.
However our involvement is all theoretical at the moment as Starmer has made clear he does not believe international law justifies the US and Israeli strikes against Iran. So it would take probably a Reform led government propped up by a Kemi led Tories for the UK to even back offensive strikes against Iran let alone sending in UK ground troops and that is not going to happen for at least 2 or 3 years and only if Labour lose the next general election
...and is a very good reason why, when it comes to it, the voters will not go for any kind of Reform government.
As for the US midterms, I am beginning to wonder whether all of these AI forecasts might not be rather tame. Extraordinary and probably illegal and even unconstitutional measures by Trump are being answered by large-scale and growing resistance. The economic catastrophe of tariffs has just been joined by exactly the kind of war that Trump promised to avoid, coupled with vulgarity and brutality to friend and foe alike that seems almost literally demented. This seems to me to be the kind of election that could throw up some earthquake results, and all of these scenarios seem based on the input of the relative stability of the past, rather than some unexpectedly dramatic future shift, which certainly could happen now. AI is shaped by the past, and that may end up being a poor guide to future prospects.
The strong probability for the earthquake is the elections either not taking place or taking place only in some North Korean sense.
(As to AI's ability to foresee the future better than humans, if it is found to be better at picking winners at Plumpton than any human intelligence, PB contributors will be among the first to know. And until it can do something simple like who is going to win a race with only a handful of possible winners or a football match with only three possible outcomes I won't believe anything else much about its predictive powers.)
Chat GPT says Plaid is going to win the 1510 at Kempton
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
Where exactly did you get that figure from because I have a suspicion it hides a very nasty surprise (for you) and the vast majority of that 350bn is made up of people's individual tax allowance...
Over £1.3 trillion, almost £1.4 trillion, in income subject to income tax of which less than £1 trillion comes from employment.
So you don’t count self employment as employment then?
The rest of the money is pensioners, interest, rent and dividends
Interest and dividends are taxed via a different tax regime to income tax so what you are left with is landlords and pensioners
Again it doesn’t raise the money you think it does and given how quickly you are happy to give pensioners a overly complex tax break compared to keeping the money separate it doesn’t actually raise any real money at all,
The government data did not count it as employment, not me.
And the question was not about employment, but about income not subject to NICs . . . and what proportion of self employed income is actually subject to NICs at the exact same rate as employed income?
Everyone earning the same income should be liable to the same taxes, no matter how it is earned.
Dividends are taxed in a particular way because the money has already been taxed once via corporation tax. Self employed pay different levels of National Insurance for long standing reasons.
You don't seem to grasp that the only people who you will be taxing are pensioners and you've already said any pensioner earning less than £50,000 is going to be exempt so I can't imagine many pensioners will be paying it....
Basically you've got a scheme that looks great but when you've finished the carve outs you've left no money being raised..
No, I would tax all the same. Including dividends and the self-employed.
I would simplify the tax system so people can not shelter their income in corporations and claim it as dividends at a lower rate of tax or all the other dodges people come up with. All forms of income have been taxed previously.
The long standing reasons for self employment NICs being lower are not very good, since employment related benefits come from the employer and not the Exchequer.
You seem to think I would keep the status quo, when I have repeatedly said I would not.
Everyone on same income should pay the same rate of tax, no exceptions.
And I’m pointing out that your changes wouldn’t result in any extra tax revenue because our tax system had been created over the past 100 years to maximizes (within certain limits) total tax take while encouraging particular behaviors (saving money and a certain amount of entrepreneurship)
No, it has been created over the past 100 years to satisfy political agendas.
Hence all the carve outs to satisfy vested interests.
Carve outs we can not afford with a budget deficit of over a hundred billion pounds per annum, and with ever higher taxes on ever fewer people.
Taxes should be low but paid by all. No exceptions, no carve outs. If that hits your votes, so be it.
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
The Sun's headline on its print edition is on Sir Keir's crime surge; I think the Mail was going with Sir Keir's persecution of the strivers.
Print edition is irrelevant as it was before the Mills story broke
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
It would be sensible (politically) to protect basic rate pensioners (under 50k income) by having a separate rate of the combined IT and NI for pensioners. Equal to the old rate.
So, at least initially, basic rate tax paying pensioners would pay no more than they do now.
At which point what is the point of the change in tax, who exactly will be paying the extra tax revenue - it would literally just be BTL landlords earning less than £50,000 a year which has to be a very niche set of people.
Gig economy stuff. Plus higher rate pensioners. Initially.
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
You think your typical gig economy worker pays tax - rollin...
There is ~350bn of taxable income per annum not subject to NICs.
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
Where exactly did you get that figure from because I have a suspicion it hides a very nasty surprise (for you) and the vast majority of that 350bn is made up of people's individual tax allowance...
Over £1.3 trillion, almost £1.4 trillion, in income subject to income tax of which less than £1 trillion comes from employment.
So you don’t count self employment as employment then?
The rest of the money is pensioners, interest, rent and dividends
Interest and dividends are taxed via a different tax regime to income tax so what you are left with is landlords and pensioners
Again it doesn’t raise the money you think it does and given how quickly you are happy to give pensioners a overly complex tax break compared to keeping the money separate it doesn’t actually raise any real money at all,
The government data did not count it as employment, not me.
And the question was not about employment, but about income not subject to NICs . . . and what proportion of self employed income is actually subject to NICs at the exact same rate as employed income?
Everyone earning the same income should be liable to the same taxes, no matter how it is earned.
Dividends are taxed in a particular way because the money has already been taxed once via corporation tax. Self employed pay different levels of National Insurance for long standing reasons.
You don't seem to grasp that the only people who you will be taxing are pensioners and you've already said any pensioner earning less than £50,000 is going to be exempt so I can't imagine many pensioners will be paying it....
Basically you've got a scheme that looks great but when you've finished the carve outs you've left no money being raised..
No, I would tax all the same. Including dividends and the self-employed.
I would simplify the tax system so people can not shelter their income in corporations and claim it as dividends at a lower rate of tax or all the other dodges people come up with. All forms of income have been taxed previously.
The long standing reasons for self employment NICs being lower are not very good, since employment related benefits come from the employer and not the Exchequer.
You seem to think I would keep the status quo, when I have repeatedly said I would not.
Everyone on same income should pay the same rate of tax, no exceptions and no carve outs.
You can't tax dividends at the same rate as income, unless you want to abolish Corp tax instead, otherwise the effective taxation rate for dividends is ~22% higher than the taxation of income.
I'm cool with abolishing Corp tax (if you did, on the plus side, there's a big incentive to get business's to reinvest profits rather than just return them to shareholders), but you might have quite a big issue with foreign owned businesses being effectively untaxed.
Corporations are not the same entity as their shareholders, which is why they shield their shareholders via things like limited liability.
For small firms owned by individuals nothing would be preventing the owner paying themselves via a salary, rather than dividends, they would just lose the existing ability to dodge taxes.
But yes, corporation tax should be low. Lower than Ireland ideally.
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
You’re not the only one taking a lot of time out from this place at the moment. What was seen in the London ‘protests’ over the weekend was horrific.
As someone living in Dubai, the current war is closer to home than it it for most, but the UAE and Saudi authorities have made it quite clear that this is the best opportunity they have to get rid of the problem. The problem that’s been there since 1979, and to which pretty much every destabilising action in the region since then can be traced.
The Iranian regime.
The world will be a much better place once that regime is gone.
Trump needs to be sectioned given his latest delusional tirade .
The problem is the Iranian regime, not Trump.
The Strait of Hormuz was open before Trump and Israel started their illegal war .
The Iranian regime was developing nuclear weapons, as confirmed by the IAEA, and attacking Israel via intermediaries, and pledging itself to the destruction of Israel all prior to the legal war commencing.
Every one of those is a legal reason for Israel to take pre-emptive self-defence on the same legal grounds we did in 2003. Indeed on much surer legal grounds.
And if Israel is acting in self defence, its ally is legally entitled to assist it in doing so.
I met up with my friends: all “centrist dads”, whether in Law, Consulting, Advertising or IT.
They are now all ferociously anti-Israel, if not actively anti-Zionist.
We seem to have been on the same journey
And yet the deliberate planned horror of the brutal rapes of women on October 7 and the female hostages kept thereafter has not led to any journey by you - or apparently @Gardenwalker's friends - reflecting on why male violence against women is wrong and why those groups, states, cultures etc which promote it should be equally viewed with horror and distaste. Which is doubtless why we read you this morning proudly saying that you feel like punching an opportunistic female politician but never an opportunistic male politician, of which there are many.
It is not necessary to balance every criticism of Israel with a criticism of Islam, or Hamas or whatever.
When a man talks about inflicting violence against a woman but then claims to have been on a journey because of his distaste about why Israel has done then it is worth noting how selective his outrage is and how he has never, as far as I can see, condemned male violence against women.
I am not often here anymore but it strikes me that it the preponderance of criticism here has been against Israel rather than Iran or Hamas and there has been very little talk or reflection on or criticism of the those attacking Jews in this country which, unlike the Middle East, is something we can actually do something about.
None of my friends talked about inflicting violence on women. And I’m not sure Roger did, did he?
You are often so keen to ingratiate yourself that you make yourself appear ridiculous. Do you think anyone with half a brain would believe I was going to punch someone or even more to the point announce it if I was?
It was clearly a joke. A figure of speech. I could have said 'Write a stiff letter' but I thought it lacked impact! Though if I'd thought I was being read by such a dullard as yourself I would have been more circumspect,
I made a similar comment about James O’Brien about two years ago, and my troll wet their bed over it
No you said you wanted to "bash Starmer". I am not engaging with you, except when you start trolling me. So please stop trolling me and we'll all be happy.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
Also the introduction of computerization means that things you used to be able to do in hours can now take months - I suspect the changes you want aren’t 2 second fixes (and given how dire most payroll software providers are you need that time to avoid them screwing up)
It's hardly like they are in line to win the next election anyway.
If they accepted at this point that they are getting smashed at the next election, and ceased to care about being popular, they could go nuts and actually do all the structural reforms the country needs.
Ironically, this might be strangely popular, as lots of people (I'm one) who have written them off as a combination of fundamentally unserious and only willing to act in the interests of their client voters (public sector employees and "benefits street") might be willing to give them another look.
As always, the problem will be that their backbench idiots won't wear any meaningful reform, as they only got into politics to spend other people's money on their favored groups.
Absolutely agreed. And its not as if pensioners are lining up to vote Labour anyway.
Headline changes to tax rates have been implemented in the computerised era in a matter of days before. A 1 week turnaround would be unprecedentedly rapid, but it is possible, and under Parliamentary Sovereignty any change Parliament passes is the law anyway.
The simplest way to do it is to change the headline rates without affecting anything else. Set a nil rate for NICs (already not only possible but exists in all computer systems) and set the ICT rates to the merged rates.
And set it from 6/4/2026 (ie next Monday).
Job done.
Hang on do you work with payroll software providers - because sadly that's one of the things I have to do...
Believe me there is no way they could implement that sort of change in 5 days (let alone the 2 it actually is given that this weekend has 2 bank holidays in it).
Now you are 100% correct that they should be able to do it but reality nowadays is very, very different...
We sold out to one and thus until my golden handcuffs expire I work for one (that you will be familiar with). I had better be careful what I say other than to say that I agree we're talking months not days.
BUT
It is also the case that if Barty became our glorious leader and he passed emergency legislation requiring that it had to be done within a few days on pain of generalist group CEOs doing time, it absolutely could be. When the incentives change from "never sign anything off incase it brakes" to "doing nothing will have you put in prison", meeting wankers can suddenly move very quickly, mostly by getting out of the way.
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
On topic, history tells us the midterms are rarely pretty for the party holding the Presidency.
Whether it will be a 1994-style blowout I don't know. In that election, the GOP won by just under seven points and gained 54 House and 8 Seante seats.
Obviously, our old mate Gerry Mandering has been at work since but it still seems a very tall order for the Republicans to hold the House. The Senate looks much harder for the Democrats but not insurmountable.
Will it make much difference? Presumably, not having a friendly legislature will force Trump to govern more executively but I suspect he won't find the last two years (presumably) that comfortable and thoughts will turn to the 2028 Presidential contest.
I think it's also easy to forget that gerrymandering isn't 'free'.
Most places (historically) who gerrymandered tried to fit all as many of their opponents votes in a couple of districts (that they won 80:20 or so), while leavning as many as possible as comfortable (but not ridiculous) 58:42 wins for the gerrymandering party.
In this way, you could have the bulk of the districts, safely, with a minority of the vote.
If you want to make the election give you more districts, then you need to take some of your opponents votes out of that 80:20 district. And you need to shrink the margin of victory in those districts you win to win.
So now we're not talking 58:42 as a baseline. We're now talking 55:45. Or 54:46. Districts that were previously safe in the event of a big swing are no longer safe.
That's why Republicans rose up and defeated plans to redraw maps in Indiana. It was becauase it made their safe districts much less safe.
In Texas, the new map is supposed to give the Republicans an additional 5 seats, taking them to 30 of the State's 38. But that may be optimistic. Three of the new Republican seats will only be narrowly Red, and all are based on Hispanics voting patterns that were new in 2024. If there is any reversion to prior voting patterns, all three of them could stay Blue.
I met up with my friends: all “centrist dads”, whether in Law, Consulting, Advertising or IT.
They are now all ferociously anti-Israel, if not actively anti-Zionist.
We seem to have been on the same journey
And yet the deliberate planned horror of the brutal rapes of women on October 7 and the female hostages kept thereafter has not led to any journey by you - or apparently @Gardenwalker's friends - reflecting on why male violence against women is wrong and why those groups, states, cultures etc which promote it should be equally viewed with horror and distaste. Which is doubtless why we read you this morning proudly saying that you feel like punching an opportunistic female politician but never an opportunistic male politician, of which there are many.
It is not necessary to balance every criticism of Israel with a criticism of Islam, or Hamas or whatever.
When a man talks about inflicting violence against a woman but then claims to have been on a journey because of his distaste about why Israel has done then it is worth noting how selective his outrage is and how he has never, as far as I can see, condemned male violence against women.
I am not often here anymore but it strikes me that it the preponderance of criticism here has been against Israel rather than Iran or Hamas and there has been very little talk or reflection on or criticism of the those attacking Jews in this country which, unlike the Middle East, is something we can actually do something about.
None of my friends talked about inflicting violence on women. And I’m not sure Roger did, did he?
You are often so keen to ingratiate yourself that you make yourself appear ridiculous. Do you think anyone with half a brain would believe I was going to punch someone or even more to the point announce it if I was?
It was clearly a joke. A figure of speech. I could have said 'Write a stiff letter' but I thought it lacked impact! Though if I'd thought I was being read by such a dullard as yourself I would have been more circumspect,
I made a similar comment about James O’Brien about two years ago, and my troll wet their bed over it
No you said you wanted to "bash Starmer". I am not engaging with you, except when you start trolling me. So please stop trolling me and we'll all be happy.
Stop going on about it you self obsessed fool.
I don't think I ever said I wanted to "bash Starmer"
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
"A Russian convicted of assaulting a woman in an attack witnessed by Donald Trump's youngest son has been jailed for four years
Matvei Rumiantsev, who lived in Canary Wharf, east London, was convicted in January of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and perverting the course of justice.
Rumiantsev, 23, attacked the victim at her flat in London when he became jealous of her blossoming friendship with Barron Trump after she met him through social media.
Mr Trump, 20, was in the US when he was on a video call with the victim, and called City of London Police to report witnessing the attack.
Rumiantsev later wrote to his victim, who cannot be named, from prison, asking her to withdraw her allegations."
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
I expect the new DG, who has come straight from Google, doesn't and wants paid subscription for the iplayer and some news online content and maybe even ads online too and on TV for big viewing figure programmes like Strictly in return for maybe no license fee needed for BBC online content
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
I have never heard of him
I expect he may get 60 seconds of news but so what
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
Is anyone on Pb still of the view the UK should have joined the war?
We should have sent the RAF to attack Iranian missile sites as Kemi rightly said. If Trump commits ground troops we should join Israel and provide them with support from the air in my view too as that would be the only way to topple the regime.
However as Starmer is in power neither will happen as he is sticking to his line offensive actions in Iran are not authorised under international law
If we'd done that we'd be counting body bags in London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh and any other town or city
Sleepers in our midst revenge lone rangers martyrs
Forget all that. That is not the reason we should not be doing this. If Iran was a genuine threat to us and we needed to change the regime there then attacks in the UK are simply part of that scenario and one we have to deal with.
The real issue here is we should not be attacking Iran or supporting the US and Israel in attacking them. They are not and were not a threat to ourselves, Europe or the US. They did not attack us. They did not attack the US or Israel. They were attacked and we should not be supporting or condoning the aggressors.
I think you can make an argument that they were attacking Israel fairly regularly via their proxies
Well yes, but by the same rote you could say Russia has been attacking us for decades. Nobody has suggested bombing St Petersburg in response.
Russia has been attacking us for decades
And bombing St Pete’s always been on the list of options.
But wiser heads have prevailed to date
Because Russia has nukes.
Iran does not, yet, and its better to have this conflict now than after a mushroom cloud appears above Tel Aviv.
Israel has had nukes for a long while, yet there has been no sign of mushroom clouds over Tehran, or anywhere else.
Israel is not led by deranged, religious nihilists.
As much as people claim they are.
Israel is not my ally. Iran is not my ally. They are both bad and I have little interest in discussing who is badder.
When it comes to setting fire to ambulances in the UK I have no tolerance for any kind of justification. Everyone has a right in this country to live free of fear and intimidation.
Israel are America's ally, so if it is legitimate for the UK to act against a threat to us (it is), then it is legitimate for Israel to act against a threat to them (it is) and it is legitimate for America to assist their ally (it is).
I don't understand your logic.
The UK might engage or oppose other countries who are not allies in its self interest. Examples of the first are a number of engagements with China. My point is just because Israel has an argument with Iran, we owe that country no favours and are not obliged to intervene on Israel's behalf.
We don't, but America do. And we are America's ally so have every right to act on that basis.
Yet for some reason America and Israel are being criticised on the basis that Iran was no threat to the United Kingdom.
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
I expect the new DG, who has come straight from Google, doesn't and wants paid subscription for the iplayer and some news online content and maybe even ads online too and on TV for big viewing figure programmes like Strictly in return for maybe no license fee needed for BBC online content
The licence fee is an unjust tax and should be scrapped
Let the BBC compete as others do in the media industry
"A Russian convicted of assaulting a woman in an attack witnessed by Donald Trump's youngest son has been jailed for four years
Matvei Rumiantsev, who lived in Canary Wharf, east London, was convicted in January of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and perverting the course of justice.
Rumiantsev, 23, attacked the victim at her flat in London when he became jealous of her blossoming friendship with Barron Trump after she met him through social media.
Mr Trump, 20, was in the US when he was on a video call with the victim, and called City of London Police to report witnessing the attack.
Rumiantsev later wrote to his victim, who cannot be named, from prison, asking her to withdraw her allegations."
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
I expect the new DG, who has come straight from Google, doesn't and wants paid subscription for the iplayer and some news online content and maybe even ads online too and on TV for big viewing figure programmes like Strictly in return for maybe no license fee needed for BBC online content
The licence fee is an unjust tax and should be scrapped
Let the BBC compete as others do in the media industry
The license fee was originally set up to fund programmes of high culture, serious drama and science and current affairs and history programmes. That is what is should fund and if the BBC funds more of its online programmes via subscription and some TV programmes via ads then the license fee funds could also be shared with other freeview broadcasters like ITV, C4 and C5. After all when the license fee was introduced in 1923 for radio and 1946 for TV the BBC was the only broadcaster, we are now in a multiple broadcaster world, online as well as radio and TV with many rival commercial broadcasters to the BBC
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
I expect the new DG, who has come straight from Google, doesn't and wants paid subscription for the iplayer and some news online content and maybe even ads online too and on TV for big viewing figure programmes like Strictly in return for maybe no license fee needed for BBC online content
The licence fee is an unjust tax and should be scrapped
Let the BBC compete as others do in the media industry
The license fee was originally set up to fund programmes of high culture, serious drama and science and current affairs and history programmes. That is what is should fund and if the BBC funds more of its online programmes via subscription and some TV programmes via ads then the license fee funds could also be shared with other freeview broadcasters like ITV, C4 and C5. After all when the license fee was introduced in 1921 the BBC was the only broadcaster, we are now in a multiple broadcaster world, online as well as radio and TV
So why is it leading the bulletins on internal gossip with no actual details?
If the BBC wants to retain the LF, it needs to act like an impartial public service broadcaster.
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
For you it’s the right thing to do / for your average pensioner that isn’t the case
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
I expect the new DG, who has come straight from Google, doesn't and wants paid subscription for the iplayer and some news online content and maybe even ads online too and on TV for big viewing figure programmes like Strictly in return for maybe no license fee needed for BBC online content
The licence fee is an unjust tax and should be scrapped
Let the BBC compete as others do in the media industry
The license fee was originally set up to fund programmes of high culture, serious drama and science and current affairs and history programmes. That is what is should fund and if the BBC funds more of its online programmes via subscription and some TV programmes via ads then the license fee funds could also be shared with other freeview broadcasters like ITV, C4 and C5. After all when the license fee was introduced in 1921 the BBC was the only broadcaster, we are now in a multiple broadcaster world, online as well as radio and TV
So why is it leading the bulletins on internal gossip with no actual details?
If the BBC wants to retain the LF, it needs to act like an impartial public service broadcaster.
As I just told you, the next BBC DG likely does NOT want to retain the LF in full, certainly not for online services and wants to fund the iplayer etc by subscription. After all he is a former Google Exec
Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.
Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...
Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.
Pure authoritarianism that will do nothing to fix the problems.
Serious politics means fixing what the politicians control.
The Australian Labor Government has had good ideas on this. The price of fuel is mostly tax anyway, and the fuel cost is controlled by HMG. Australia has halved fuel duty, we should do the same, or go one better and suspend it altogether.
Australia has reacted faster as they are (like the Asian counties) affected earlier, as they import a larger percentage of their oil from the Gulf.
Indeed and we don't.
So we are more protected, besides fiscally.
So this can all be solved by slashing or abolishing fuel duty.
And how would you replace the tax revenue?
The state takes billions more from drivers than it spends on roads etc, there is no shortfall there.
Drivers should pay no more for transport than the cost of their transport.
General expenditure should come from general taxation, not drivers.
So specifically which tax would you increase instead?
I would start by merging Income Tax and National Insurance so everyone is paying the same tax rate.
I would also abolish subsidies on rail fares etc.
Drivers or rail passengers should pay their own transport costs, without extra taxes or subsidies.
You are cutting taxes now with a fix that is both electoral suicide and longer term.
So again where do you raise £xbn of taxes from today to subsidies car drivers who drive a lot..
You options are really VAT or National insurance BTW as both those can be changed with about 1 months notice..
I would not subsidise car drivers. I would not excessively tax them, but that is not a subsidy.
Drivers should be paying for their cost of commuting, as should rail commuters and everyone else engaging in transport.
But that should not be filling the coffera of general taxation.
Let's try again - you want to remove tax revenue (by not taxing fuel), where are you going to increase the tax make up the shortfall you've just created?
I have said, I would rebalance the economy by merging National Insurance and Income Tax. Unearned income taxed at as high a percentage rate as salaried income.
It will also put our finances on a more stable long-term footing as fuel duty is due to be phased out, anyway.
It is also the right thing to do, to tax everyone for general taxation, not merely those driving to work who get double charged while others get off for free.
And you’ve just lost the next election by increasing income tax for pensioners by 8%.
So be it. It is the right thing to do.
It would also put our finances on a far more stable footing, and in extremis it could be implemented next Monday.
Would you apply that to benefits recipients ?
It’s income. It’s feared lf tax and NI.
Bart has fixed the problem with his simple solution.
The technicalities that make his simple solution impractical aren't things he cares about - he's got cheaper fuel so can drive more and consume more of the very limited simply...
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
I expect the new DG, who has come straight from Google, doesn't and wants paid subscription for the iplayer and some news online content and maybe even ads online too and on TV for big viewing figure programmes like Strictly in return for maybe no license fee needed for BBC online content
The licence fee is an unjust tax and should be scrapped
Let the BBC compete as others do in the media industry
The license fee was originally set up to fund programmes of high culture, serious drama and science and current affairs and history programmes. That is what is should fund and if the BBC funds more of its online programmes via subscription and some TV programmes via ads then the license fee funds could also be shared with other freeview broadcasters like ITV, C4 and C5. After all when the license fee was introduced in 1923 for radio and 1946 for TV the BBC was the only broadcaster, we are now in a multiple broadcaster world, online as well as radio and TV with many rival commercial broadcasters to the BBC
Nope - it comes from the 1Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904 which allowed the Postmaster General to charge for the issuing of licenses permitting the "experimental" receipt of radio transmissions.
After WW1 it the Post Office suggested the creation of the BBC and used the money from the licenses to pay for the BBC as a whole - whether it was high culture or just the 1920's version of a phone in (yes it didn't exist but that's not the point).
On topic, history tells us the midterms are rarely pretty for the party holding the Presidency.
Whether it will be a 1994-style blowout I don't know. In that election, the GOP won by just under seven points and gained 54 House and 8 Seante seats.
Obviously, our old mate Gerry Mandering has been at work since but it still seems a very tall order for the Republicans to hold the House. The Senate looks much harder for the Democrats but not insurmountable.
Will it make much difference? Presumably, not having a friendly legislature will force Trump to govern more executively but I suspect he won't find the last two years (presumably) that comfortable and thoughts will turn to the 2028 Presidential contest.
I think it's also easy to forget that gerrymandering isn't 'free'.
Most places (historically) who gerrymandered tried to fit all as many of their opponents votes in a couple of districts (that they won 80:20 or so), while leavning as many as possible as comfortable (but not ridiculous) 58:42 wins for the gerrymandering party.
In this way, you could have the bulk of the districts, safely, with a minority of the vote.
If you want to make the election give you more districts, then you need to take some of your opponents votes out of that 80:20 district. And you need to shrink the margin of victory in those districts you win to win.
So now we're not talking 58:42 as a baseline. We're now talking 55:45. Or 54:46. Districts that were previously safe in the event of a big swing are no longer safe.
That's why Republicans rose up and defeated plans to redraw maps in Indiana. It was becauase it made their safe districts much less safe.
In Texas, the new map is supposed to give the Republicans an additional 5 seats, taking them to 30 of the State's 38. But that may be optimistic. Three of the new Republican seats will only be narrowly Red, and all are based on Hispanics voting patterns that were new in 2024. If there is any reversion to prior voting patterns, all three of them could stay Blue.
Here's another method they're trying.
CNN found a Nebraska Democratic Senate candidate attended a GOP training event just months before filing for Senate. The Dem state party calls him a GOP plant to "trick voters" — he tells me he's a "free thinker," but admits voting for Trump. https://x.com/KFILE/status/2038591435285393789
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
I expect the new DG, who has come straight from Google, doesn't and wants paid subscription for the iplayer and some news online content and maybe even ads online too and on TV for big viewing figure programmes like Strictly in return for maybe no license fee needed for BBC online content
The licence fee is an unjust tax and should be scrapped
Let the BBC compete as others do in the media industry
The license fee was originally set up to fund programmes of high culture, serious drama and science and current affairs and history programmes. That is what is should fund and if the BBC funds more of its online programmes via subscription and some TV programmes via ads then the license fee funds could also be shared with other freeview broadcasters like ITV, C4 and C5. After all when the license fee was introduced in 1923 for radio and 1946 for TV the BBC was the only broadcaster, we are now in a multiple broadcaster world, online as well as radio and TV with many rival commercial broadcasters to the BBC
Nope - it comes from the 1Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904 which allowed the Postmaster General to charge for the issuing of licenses permitting the "experimental" receipt of radio transmissions.
After WW1 it the Post Office suggested the creation of the BBC and used the money from the licenses to pay for the BBC as a whole - whether it was high culture or just the 1920's version of a phone in (yes it didn't exist but that's not the point).
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
I expect the new DG, who has come straight from Google, doesn't and wants paid subscription for the iplayer and some news online content and maybe even ads online too and on TV for big viewing figure programmes like Strictly in return for maybe no license fee needed for BBC online content
The licence fee is an unjust tax and should be scrapped
Let the BBC compete as others do in the media industry
The license fee was originally set up to fund programmes of high culture, serious drama and science and current affairs and history programmes. That is what is should fund and if the BBC funds more of its online programmes via subscription and some TV programmes via ads then the license fee funds could also be shared with other freeview broadcasters like ITV, C4 and C5. After all when the license fee was introduced in 1921 the BBC was the only broadcaster, we are now in a multiple broadcaster world, online as well as radio and TV
So why is it leading the bulletins on internal gossip with no actual details?
If the BBC wants to retain the LF, it needs to act like an impartial public service broadcaster.
As I just told you, the next BBC DG likely does NOT want to retain the LF in full, certainly not for online services and to fund the iplayer etc by subscription. After all he is a former Google Exec
Do you have any evidence to back that up - knowing the new DG I suspect he's pragmatically looking at all options because that's the type of person he is.
What he definitely won't be doing is saying anything until he's had a chance to see the reality
I met up with my friends: all “centrist dads”, whether in Law, Consulting, Advertising or IT.
They are now all ferociously anti-Israel, if not actively anti-Zionist.
We seem to have been on the same journey
And yet the deliberate planned horror of the brutal rapes of women on October 7 and the female hostages kept thereafter has not led to any journey by you - or apparently @Gardenwalker's friends - reflecting on why male violence against women is wrong and why those groups, states, cultures etc which promote it should be equally viewed with horror and distaste. Which is doubtless why we read you this morning proudly saying that you feel like punching an opportunistic female politician but never an opportunistic male politician, of which there are many.
It is not necessary to balance every criticism of Israel with a criticism of Islam, or Hamas or whatever.
When a man talks about inflicting violence against a woman but then claims to have been on a journey because of his distaste about why Israel has done then it is worth noting how selective his outrage is and how he has never, as far as I can see, condemned male violence against women.
I am not often here anymore but it strikes me that it the preponderance of criticism here has been against Israel rather than Iran or Hamas and there has been very little talk or reflection on or criticism of the those attacking Jews in this country which, unlike the Middle East, is something we can actually do something about.
I believe you care being unusually disingenuous. After October 7th I was in discussion on here with @Richard_Tyndall that Hamas should be punished first not by wiping out the footsoldier holed up in tunnels under Gazan hospitals but take out the Grandees in Doha. It was a long while before Netanyahu took out the Doha contingent.
The criticism certainly from me has been for the Israeli regime and certainly the hardliners, of which I consider Netanyahu to be crucial. Netanyahu like Trump has used conflict as a smokescreen for domestic existential troubles. At no point have I brushed off the wickedness of October 7th.
I would condemn criminals setting fire to ambulances in North London, shooting up synagogues in Manchester with equal measure to criminals setting fire to Holiday Inn Express hotels in Essex. Anyone going about their lawful business unhindered and in safety,whatever their creed or colour. The fact that they can't either as Jews or Muslims suggests a dereliction of duty by the authorities, and not just Central Government.
"The fact that they can't either as Jews or Muslims suggests a dereliction of duty by the authorities"
hmmm. The problem there is that, even in a total surveillance state*, you can't stop people behaving badly. All you can do is catch people after the act and try and deter the next lot.
*Drug trafficking and various other organised crimes ave flourished in the most totalitarian states the world has produced so far. As did attacks on ethnic groups, even though under the (nominal) protection of the state.
I was thinking more about curtailment of a culture that behind the cloak of free speech allows Anti-Semitic and Islamaphobic narratives. The trouble is the infection is deep inside Fleet Street and the Houses of Parliament.
OfCom stripping GBNews of its licence would be a start from one side of the coin.
If you look at the various police reports and trials, the problem is about 95% self radicalised dipshits and losers, with a smattering of state sponsorship of dipshits and losers.
While we can try and reduce the volume on the media messages that feed this, sadly, hate filled dipshits and losers are a renewable resource.
While it would be nice to eliminate it, I can't see how. We could do lots of performative measures, that would impact the minority communities concerned excessively. And would be somewhere between useless and counterproductive.
But don't you think the sad and uniformed would no be triggered by the lies of GBNews or even hard left X accounts.
I was listening to a woman years ago whose aged father was always angry after learning how hard done by he was from Fox News. She said when he moved in with them her husband disabled Fox so he had to get his 24 hour news from less unreliable sources and he was much happier.
I’ve often wondered why anyone would choose to consume news from a place that simply provokes and enrages them.
It’s no way to live a life.
In my view this rules out, for example, the Mail, Telegraph AND the Guardian.
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
Don't say goodbye, it would be a shame if you were to go
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
I expect the new DG, who has come straight from Google, doesn't and wants paid subscription for the iplayer and some news online content and maybe even ads online too and on TV for big viewing figure programmes like Strictly in return for maybe no license fee needed for BBC online content
The licence fee is an unjust tax and should be scrapped
Let the BBC compete as others do in the media industry
The license fee was originally set up to fund programmes of high culture, serious drama and science and current affairs and history programmes. That is what is should fund and if the BBC funds more of its online programmes via subscription and some TV programmes via ads then the license fee funds could also be shared with other freeview broadcasters like ITV, C4 and C5. After all when the license fee was introduced in 1923 for radio and 1946 for TV the BBC was the only broadcaster, we are now in a multiple broadcaster world, online as well as radio and TV with many rival commercial broadcasters to the BBC
Nope - it comes from the 1Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904 which allowed the Postmaster General to charge for the issuing of licenses permitting the "experimental" receipt of radio transmissions.
After WW1 it the Post Office suggested the creation of the BBC and used the money from the licenses to pay for the BBC as a whole - whether it was high culture or just the 1920's version of a phone in (yes it didn't exist but that's not the point).
Yes so it started funding the BBC from the 1920s
My point was it wasn't money to fund high culture, serious drama and science and current affairs and history programmes. It was to fund shows that encouraged people to get a radio and so purchase a radio licence...
So we’re two days from launching man around the moon, there’s wars going on in Iran and Ukraine, but the BBC are leading the news on their own DJ being sacked for misconduct…
So is the Sun and the Mail, the wars in Iran and Ukraine will still be going on for the rest of the year most likely, I expect the average viewer or reader will be more interested in Scott Mills sacking today. We have already done man on the moon, man on Mars or Man arrives in next galaxy might be interesting but man around the moon is a bit of a yawn https://www.thesun.co.uk/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Let the tabloids run on tabloid stuff.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
It is also second story on the Telegraph and a lead story on the Times
But we expect the BBC, “Thanks to the unique way it’s funded”, to be better than that and not lead on gossip.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
At the end of the day they will give stories that get the most clicks on their website the highest order and today I can guarantee it will be Mills getting more clicks than the latest news on Iran
My whole point is that the BBC should have no interest in clicks and likes. They should be above all that.
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
I expect the new DG, who has come straight from Google, doesn't and wants paid subscription for the iplayer and some news online content and maybe even ads online too and on TV for big viewing figure programmes like Strictly in return for maybe no license fee needed for BBC online content
The licence fee is an unjust tax and should be scrapped
Let the BBC compete as others do in the media industry
The license fee was originally set up to fund programmes of high culture, serious drama and science and current affairs and history programmes. That is what is should fund and if the BBC funds more of its online programmes via subscription and some TV programmes via ads then the license fee funds could also be shared with other freeview broadcasters like ITV, C4 and C5. After all when the license fee was introduced in 1923 for radio and 1946 for TV the BBC was the only broadcaster, we are now in a multiple broadcaster world, online as well as radio and TV with many rival commercial broadcasters to the BBC
Nope - it comes from the 1Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904 which allowed the Postmaster General to charge for the issuing of licenses permitting the "experimental" receipt of radio transmissions.
After WW1 it the Post Office suggested the creation of the BBC and used the money from the licenses to pay for the BBC as a whole - whether it was high culture or just the 1920's version of a phone in (yes it didn't exist but that's not the point).
Yes so it started funding the BBC from the 1920s
My point was it wasn't money to fund high culture, serious drama and science and current affairs and history programmes. It was to fund shows that encouraged people to get a radio and so purchase a radio licence...
Though radio licences are not a thing today.
Radio 1 should compete with other Pop Music providers like Heart or Spotify and raise its money privately. It serves no public interest.
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
I am sure I will not be alone in feeling sorry to see you go. I have always found your contributions to be well written and thought-provoking.
Look after yourself.
Absolutely - all the very best, and I hope you won't totally leave the site.
On topic, supporting a two-state solution makes sense even if radicals on both sides reject it. Not every position gets implemented. I see no contradiction in supporting Israel's existence in its present boundaries and opposing the extremist actions of its current government. We should support what we think to be right, even when it looks difficult.
I asked my question earlier in good faith. But there is a pissiness in the responses which does no credit to this forum really.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
Sweeney74's post upthread is the best reply I can give you. In full: Is possible to talk reasonably about Israel and Palestine?
Only if people stop insisting on one spotless victim and one pure villain.
That seems to be where half these rows go wrong. Israelis have suffered real horrors. Palestinians have suffered real horrors. Hamas are butchers. Large parts of the Israeli state response have been brutal, reckless and, in places, morally indefensible. None of that should be difficult to say, but people keep acting as though admitting one part somehow cancels the other.
The other problem is that people collapse four different arguments into one: who has suffered more, who is morally worse, who has the better historical claim, and what should actually happen now. Those are not the same question. In fact, the only one that really matters politically is the last one.
On the “right to the land” stuff, both sides have narratives that feel complete and righteous from the inside. Fine. But history does not provide a neat answer that makes millions of actual human beings disappear tidily, however tempting that may be to armchair zealots.
The slant I do think is real is that this conflict does seem to inflame and legitimise antisemitism far beyond Israel itself. Criticism of the Israeli government is plainly not the same thing as antisemitism. But it is also obvious that plenty of anti-Israel rhetoric slides very quickly into treating Jews everywhere as collectively guilty, which is just old poison in fresh packaging.
Same rule the other way round too: a synagogue in Manchester is not the IDF, and a mosque in Birmingham is not Hamas.
If people cannot keep that distinction clear, then they are not really talking about peace, justice or even politics. They are just picking a tribe and licensing hatred.
I wish you all the best, and will greatly miss your contributions if this really is your goodbye.
thanks. This debate needs the venom extracted. Sadly I see no sign of that.
Comments
But instead of making that investment we pissed away £50 billion on universal fuel bill support in 2022. Deeply regressive transfer to people living in massive houses.
I do have three small tubs in the garden that are my ‘wild ponds’. I got pond water, detritus and plants from three places. Dumped one in each and see what grows.
I wouldn’t mind chickens. But my wife may object.
https://www.flickfilosopher.com/2013/02/doctor-who-thing-dalek-crossword.html
Boil the frog slowly. In sections.
And don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough for now.
In 2008 there were changes from 6 April 2008 that were announced on 13 May 2008 and backdated.
Here it would not be backdating. Give payroll providers leeway to fix it within the tax year, as happened in 2008, but its entirely viable to do.
You just don't like the solution, and never have. That's different to it being inviable.
Thank you, and good night
Of that 50-60% is basic rate pensioners.
Unlike Malmesbury, I would tax basic rate pensioners the same as basic rate employees . . . If it is good enough for those working for a living, it is good enough for those who are not.
However even if you exclude basic rate pensioners, it still unites a significant chunk that is not under NICs currently.
Including over 100bn of non pensioner income.
I have asked others elsewhere and have not received any sort of response bar, from one, a statement that Jews should go back to where they came from, which was darkly ironic really as well as ignorant. A 2-state solution would be the obvious and best answer but since Palestinians have turned this down 3 times and the demand now is for a Palestinian state instead of Israel with no Jews allowed to live in it, ethnic cleansing of and/or death for Jews would appear to be the preferred options of those demanding no Israel. This is not an option I support. But I fear that we are in a world where policy is increasingly being made by or for the benefit of those who think that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust was that it did not go far enough
I will bid you goodbye. Much like those choosing not to read newspapers which enrage them I choose not to spend time on a forum which feels increasingly hostile to those who do not accept its received opinions. Substituting books for social media is a good trade.
Over £1.3 trillion, almost £1.4 trillion, in income subject to income tax of which less than £1 trillion comes from employment.
Goodbye and all the best for your health
The rest of the money is pensioners, interest, rent and dividends
Interest and dividends are taxed via a different tax regime to income tax so what you are left with is landlords and pensioners
Again it doesn’t raise the money you think it does and given how quickly you are happy to give pensioners a overly complex tax break compared to keeping the money separate it doesn’t actually raise any real money at all,
I will always make decisions that are in the national interest.
It’s why we aren’t getting dragged into the Middle East conflict, and why we are fighting to protect your living standards.
And while opposition parties have responded by dividing communities, we respond with hope and pride.
Pride in our communities, and the hope of a country that’s better for our children.
That’s what we’re fighting for. Vote Labour on Thursday 7 May.
Trump needs to be sectioned given his latest delusional tirade .
I'd welcome that although I doubt it would solve everything and there'd be plenty of arguing/drama about where the borders get drawn.
It would feel like progress at least.
And the question was not about employment, but about income not subject to NICs . . . and what proportion of self employed income is actually subject to NICs at the exact same rate as employed income?
Everyone earning the same income should be liable to the same taxes, no matter how it is earned.
I would not exempt pensioners from tax equalisation, that proposal came from Malmesbury. I said I would not do that, if a tax rate is good enough for basic rate employees then why not basic rate pensioners?
Self employed pay different levels of National Insurance for long standing reasons.
You don't seem to grasp that the only people who you will be taxing are pensioners and you've already said any pensioner earning less than £50,000 is going to be exempt so I can't imagine many pensioners will be paying it....
Basically you've got a scheme that looks great but when you've finished the carve outs you've left no money being raised..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/ce3dn6ge3qro
I would simplify the tax system so people can not shelter their income in corporations and claim it as dividends at a lower rate of tax or all the other dodges people come up with. All forms of income have been taxed previously.
The long standing reasons for self employment NICs being lower are not very good, since employment related benefits come from the employer and not the Exchequer.
You seem to think I would keep the status quo, when I have repeatedly said I would not.
Everyone on same income should pay the same rate of tax, no exceptions and no carve outs.
The principle of the route is fine, but demand for it far outweighs services available. Wardens can only do so much, and there wont be many active in the cooler months
Happy to say it was a huge mistake for Arafat to have rejected it. But that was rather a long time ago and we can do better than what is currently happening.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
In full:
Is possible to talk reasonably about Israel and Palestine?
Only if people stop insisting on one spotless victim and one pure villain.
That seems to be where half these rows go wrong. Israelis have suffered real horrors. Palestinians have suffered real horrors. Hamas are butchers. Large parts of the Israeli state response have been brutal, reckless and, in places, morally indefensible. None of that should be difficult to say, but people keep acting as though admitting one part somehow cancels the other.
The other problem is that people collapse four different arguments into one: who has suffered more, who is morally worse, who has the better historical claim, and what should actually happen now. Those are not the same question. In fact, the only one that really matters politically is the last one.
On the “right to the land” stuff, both sides have narratives that feel complete and righteous from the inside. Fine. But history does not provide a neat answer that makes millions of actual human beings disappear tidily, however tempting that may be to armchair zealots.
The slant I do think is real is that this conflict does seem to inflame and legitimise antisemitism far beyond Israel itself. Criticism of the Israeli government is plainly not the same thing as antisemitism. But it is also obvious that plenty of anti-Israel rhetoric slides very quickly into treating Jews everywhere as collectively guilty, which is just old poison in fresh packaging.
Same rule the other way round too: a synagogue in Manchester is not the IDF, and a mosque in Birmingham is not Hamas.
If people cannot keep that distinction clear, then they are not really talking about peace, justice or even politics. They are just picking a tribe and licensing hatred.
I wish you all the best, and will greatly miss your contributions if this really is your goodbye.
Look after yourself.
NC500 was a great idea but is now a victim of its own success, because it’s an absolutely wonderful place to be but it’s now overloaded with tourists.
Make it it a toll road for the camper vans, with a couple of strategic barriers and the local van hire companies selling stamps.
But the money needs to go 100% into actually working on the road, making more laybys, improving the single-track sections etc. No contractor boondoggles nor political interference.
https://substack.com/@snarkygherkin/note/c-234844710
Add a few days on to that and that’s when the panicking will really begin
2 Jewish States.
Israel original boundary next to the States of Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria.
A second designated State in Africa in parts of Ethiopia. An impoverished area that would benefit massively in Jewish business acumen and work ethic.
Big Jewish settlement already
Now I don’t particularly like Scott Mills but that does seem a bit extreme
And I hope that the commentary here becomes more civil -- and, more rational, especially on Jews and Israel.
Here are some facts everyone should know:
1. Israel has been at peace with its Arab neighbor, Jordan, for decades. In fact, it is not going too far to say that they are, in effect, allies against the terrorists.
2. Israel has been at peace with its Arab neighbor, Egypt, ever since the 1978 Camp David Accords.
3. Israel would be at peace with its Arab neighbor, Lebanon, were it not for the terrorists there.
4. Hamas has been unable to make peace, even with the PLO.
5. Bill Clinton advised George W. Bush not to try to negotiate peace between the Palestinians and Israel, because the Palestinian leadership did not want peace (or, possibly, feared for their lives if they tried to negotiate with Israel.)
Bush continued the American efforts, in spite of that advice.
6. In 1945, the Nazis could have stopped the Allied attacks by surrendering, and giving up their war criminals; Hamas could have stopped the Israeli attacks by doing the same.
I'm cool with abolishing Corp tax (if you did, on the plus side, there's a big incentive to get business's to reinvest profits rather than just return them to shareholders), but you might have quite a big issue with foreign owned businesses being effectively untaxed.
The BBC’s introspective obsession with itself will be its downfall.
Hence all the carve outs to satisfy vested interests.
Carve outs we can not afford with a budget deficit of over a hundred billion pounds per annum, and with ever higher taxes on ever fewer people.
Taxes should be low but paid by all. No exceptions, no carve outs. If that hits your votes, so be it.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/
https://www.thetimes.com/?gclsrc=aw.ds&&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=1463632778&adgroupid=56048139559&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=719979788324&utm_term=the times&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=1463632778&gbraid=0AAAAADiwoSDGObQ6JjGbnLXnPlnhUqsPP&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-KGJs-XHkwMVV5BQBh3JWyWjEAAYASAAEgJcEvD_BwE
For small firms owned by individuals nothing would be preventing the owner paying themselves via a salary, rather than dividends, they would just lose the existing ability to dodge taxes.
But yes, corporation tax should be low. Lower than Ireland ideally.
As someone living in Dubai, the current war is closer to home than it it for most, but the UAE and Saudi authorities have made it quite clear that this is the best opportunity they have to get rid of the problem. The problem that’s been there since 1979, and to which pretty much every destabilising action in the region since then can be traced.
The Iranian regime.
The world will be a much better place once that regime is gone.
Every one of those is a legal reason for Israel to take pre-emptive self-defence on the same legal grounds we did in 2003. Indeed on much surer legal grounds.
And if Israel is acting in self defence, its ally is legally entitled to assist it in doing so.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/scott-mills-sacked-radio-2-36942946
BUT
It is also the case that if Barty became our glorious leader and he passed emergency legislation requiring that it had to be done within a few days on pain of generalist group CEOs doing time, it absolutely could be. When the incentives change from "never sign anything off incase it brakes" to "doing nothing will have you put in prison", meeting wankers can suddenly move very quickly, mostly by getting out of the way.
Oh, so our DJ was fired for unspecified “reasons”, is not a leading news article, at least not unless there’s a lot of detail of the “reasons”.
“The guy who led the broadcast of the Queen’s funeral being charged with possession of CP” is arguably a story, but still probably not the top story on a busy day. His conviction is probably the top story, as is the leniency of his suspended sentence.
Most places (historically) who gerrymandered tried to fit all as many of their opponents votes in a couple of districts (that they won 80:20 or so), while leavning as many as possible as comfortable (but not ridiculous) 58:42 wins for the gerrymandering party.
In this way, you could have the bulk of the districts, safely, with a minority of the vote.
If you want to make the election give you more districts, then you need to take some of your opponents votes out of that 80:20 district. And you need to shrink the margin of victory in those districts you win to win.
So now we're not talking 58:42 as a baseline. We're now talking 55:45. Or 54:46. Districts that were previously safe in the event of a big swing are no longer safe.
That's why Republicans rose up and defeated plans to redraw maps in Indiana. It was becauase it made their safe districts much less safe.
In Texas, the new map is supposed to give the Republicans an additional 5 seats, taking them to 30 of the State's 38. But that may be optimistic. Three of the new Republican seats will only be narrowly Red, and all are based on Hispanics voting patterns that were new in 2024. If there is any reversion to prior voting patterns, all three of them could stay Blue.
I don't think I ever said I wanted to "bash Starmer"
The BBC should be the only ones leading on Iran when everyone else leads on tabloid crap.
If they want to retain their funding model.
Matvei Rumiantsev, who lived in Canary Wharf, east London, was convicted in January of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and perverting the course of justice.
Rumiantsev, 23, attacked the victim at her flat in London when he became jealous of her blossoming friendship with Barron Trump after she met him through social media.
Mr Trump, 20, was in the US when he was on a video call with the victim, and called City of London Police to report witnessing the attack.
Rumiantsev later wrote to his victim, who cannot be named, from prison, asking her to withdraw her allegations."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kki3bI3uF0s
I expect he may get 60 seconds of news but so what
Why is it getting any public funding?
https://x.com/emilythornberry/status/2038572384836255838
Let the BBC compete as others do in the media industry
If the BBC wants to retain the LF, it needs to act like an impartial public service broadcaster.
After WW1 it the Post Office suggested the creation of the BBC and used the money from the licenses to pay for the BBC as a whole - whether it was high culture or just the 1920's version of a phone in (yes it didn't exist but that's not the point).
CNN found a Nebraska Democratic Senate candidate attended a GOP training event just months before filing for Senate. The Dem state party calls him a GOP plant to "trick voters" — he tells me he's a "free thinker," but admits voting for Trump.
https://x.com/KFILE/status/2038591435285393789
What he definitely won't be doing is saying anything until he's had a chance to see the reality
And even they aren't perfect.
This will be manna from heaven for the tabloids, local press and anyone else who wants to drive traffic and get clicks.
There is a bridge named after him in Hampshire. I wonder if it will be renamed.
Radio 1 should compete with other Pop Music providers like Heart or Spotify and raise its money privately. It serves no public interest.
Cf. "be balanced and Zionist", and "explore the complexities and benefits of British relations with Israel."
On topic, supporting a two-state solution makes sense even if radicals on both sides reject it. Not every position gets implemented. I see no contradiction in supporting Israel's existence in its present boundaries and opposing the extremist actions of its current government. We should support what we think to be right, even when it looks difficult.
This debate needs the venom extracted. Sadly I see no sign of that.